Hermann Rosse | |
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| Born | (1887-01-01)1 January 1887 The Hague, Netherlands |
| Died | 13 April 1965(1965-04-13) (aged 78) Nyack, New York, U.S. |
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| Years active | 1909-1960 |
Hermann Rosse (1 January 1887 – 13 April 1965) was a Dutch-American architect, illustrator, painter, theatrical designer, and art director.[1] He won anAcademy Award for Best Art Direction for the film theKing of Jazz.[2]
He was born inThe Hague, Netherlands, and died inNyack, New York. Herman was the second child of Carl Rosse (8 March 1857 at Kassevitz - ?) and Jacoba Susanna de Haan. The elder sister of Herman, Bertha Suzanna (SUZE) Rosse (The Hague, 1 September 1884 – 17 April 1968) became a well-known Dutch painter.
Hermann Rosse studied at the Academy of Art inThe Hague and trained in architecture and design at the Delft Polytechnic School and the South Kensington College of Art in London. From 1908 to 1910 he attendedStanford University in California, earned his B.A. in architecture, and designed several residences.[3] He spent much of the summer in 1909 at the nearby art colony ofCarmel-by-the-Sea and contributed his paintings to the Third Annual Exhibition of the Carmel Arts & Crafts Club.[4] From 1911 to 1913 he produced most of the decorative interior designs – including paintings, stained glass, tiles, and marquetry – for thePeace Palace atThe Hague; and while working there he met his future wife, Sophia Helena Luyt (1891–1982), a landscape architect who was responsible for the design of the formal gardens. After their marriage in London on 14 June 1913, they moved toPalo Alto, California, where Rosse was commissioned to design decorations for the Netherlands pavilion at the 1915Panama–Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. He received a medal of honor for this commission.[5] In 1914 he became an exhibiting member of the exclusive San Francisco Sketch Club.[6] The many exhibitions of his watercolors, murals, and theatrical models at private and public art galleries in the San Francisco Bay Area, including the Palace of Fine Arts,San Francisco Art Association and Oakland Art Gallery, consistently received glowing reviews.[7][8][9][4] Beginning in the spring of 1917 he was appointed the Instructor of Decorative Design at the California School of Fine Arts, today'sSan Francisco Art Institute.[10] Rosse designed sets for the Forest Theatre in Carmel, Art Theatre of Palo Alto, and The Playhouse in Santa Barbara.[4]
In 1918, he moved to Illinois, where he accepted an appointment to head the Design Department of the School at theArt Institute of Chicago. In addition to teaching, he took private commissions for interiors, fabric designs and book illustrations, and created sets for the stage in conjunction withBen Hecht,Kenneth Macgowan, the Goodman Theater, and Mary Garden's Chicago Grand Opera Company.[11] In April 1919 his work was included in the highly popular Exhibition of American Stage Designs at the Bourgeois Galleries in New York City, along with contributions by Macgowan, the incomparableJames Blanding Sloan,Robert Edmond Jones,Norman Bel Geddes,Joseph Urban, and many others. This exhibition traveled across the United States and closed at theUniversity of California, Berkeley.[12] His 1921 solo exhibition at the Arden Galleries in New York City received rave reviews.[13] Also, in 1921, Rosse provided stunning illustrations for Ben Hecht's column in theChicago Daily News; These were collected into a book titled,1001 Afternoons in Chicago, which also featured Rosse's strikingly bold pen drawings. In 1923 Rosse moved with his family to New City inRockland County, New York. He was already familiar with the New York theatre world, and now became more closely involved with drama, vaudeville, musicals, and even symphony orchestras. He created the sets for theZiegfeld Follies (1922),Casanova andThe Swan (1923), Gershwin'sRhapsody in Blue (1926),The Great Magoo (1932), andUlysses in Nighttown (1958); he authored and co-authored several publications and even designed a movie theatre where audiences could sit on either side of a gigantic screen.[4] Between 1929 and 1933 he worked inHollywood, California designing scenery for numerous plays. While under contract forUniversal Pictures he created the innovative sets for the filmsFrankenstein,Strictly Dishonorable, andEmperor Jones. He worked as the Art Director on John Murray Anderson's film theKing of Jazz, starringPaul Whiteman and his Orchestra, for which Rosse's imaginative and technically innovative designs earned him the first Academy Award for Art Direction (now in the Chapin Library). TheTheatre Arts Monthly, a magazine that frequently showcased Rosse's work, published an article on "Cinema Design" which highlighted with photographs his other films, including,The Murders of the Rue Morgue,East is West,Boudoir Diplomat, andResurrection.[14]
Rosse worked in theatre in London and the Netherlands, taught as the Professor of Decorative Art at the Technische Hoogeschool in Delft, and designed Dutch pavilions at world's fairs in Brussels, Paris, and New York. He also created plans for subdivisions in several Dutch cities. In 1948 Rosse was appointed Resident Stage designer at thePaper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, New Jersey. He worked there for a dozen years, while also editingChapter One, the newsletter of the Greater New York chapter of theAmerican National Theatre and Academy (ANTA). In 1949, he won a competition to design theTony Award, the silver prototype of which is in the Chapin Library. Rosse died in Nyack, New York in April 1965.
Since 1988 members of the Rosse family have donated books, manuscripts, paintings, drawings, prints, plans, photographs, documents, and memorabiliaconcerning the work of Herman and Helena Rosse to Chapin Library, Williams College Williamstown, Massachusetts (USA).
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